Wilful Impropriety (9 page)

Agatha had finished her studies earlier than usual, though. Something about the scent of her latest experiment had reminded her of Isobel.

A smile deepened on her face, and she lifted up her skirts to run. Magic sparked in the air around her, carrying the sound of her laughter to the woods before her.

Isobel was waiting for her there . . . and they were both distracted from their work for the rest of that morning, in the most delightful manner possible.

The two animal additions to the household, as promised, disturbed Sir Jasper not a whit. The housecat, a sleek black creature with an oddly straight feline nose, kept to the kitchens, where her bad temper made her a perfect mousecatcher and a useful addition to the household . . .

. . . and the elegant, golden-blond cocker spaniel with her coat of thick, soft fur rarely moved from her preferred spot in front of the fireplace. As Miss Tremain had given explicit orders that a fire always be lit for the dog’s comfort, regardless of what heat might bake the house, she could be certain of at least one thing.

Clarisse would never be cold again.

New York City, 1889

It was a golden October day, bright and sweet as fresh apple cider, but darkness clouded Peter Oesterlische’s brow as he walked along Fifth Avenue toward the Calacacara Club. He was deeply absorbed in thought—so deeply, in fact, that when his old friend Astor Nussbaum rounded the corner in a mad sprint, Oesterlische failed to notice him and was, as a result, knocked sprawling into a decorative pot of frost-wilted nasturtiums.

“
Ostrich!
” Nussbaum compounded the indignity of the un orthodox reunion by greeting Oesterlische with the nickname he’d been formally saddled with in college. He reached down to help Oesterlische to his feet.

“
Ass
,” Oesterlische rejoined, using a nickname that had been applied to Astor Nussbaum on several occasions, but never formally.

Nussbaum had the chubby cheeks and vaguely petulant mien of the Astor family, his storied forbears. He slicked sweat from his forehead and attempted to breathe at a more casual pace.

“Well! Ostrich!” Nussbaum cast a worried glance over his shoulder. “Fancy meeting you here.” Another glance. “How’re things?”

“Things?” Oesterlische brushed potting soil from the back of his trousers. “Why,
things
are just peachy, Nussbaum.” Oesterlische caught sight of two large, rough-looking men rounding the corner. “
Things
seem a damn sight better for me than you at the moment.”

Nussbaum saw the direction of his friend’s gaze, saw the rough-looking men pointing at him. He turned a rather elegant shade of pearly gray. He was about to resume his flight when Oesterlische clapped a hand on his shoulder and pointed toward a brass-handled door at the top of a high stoop.

“Follow me,” he said. “The Calacacara’s right here.”

When the young men had achieved the inviolable security of the Calacacara’s carved-walnut vestibule, Oesterlische gave the doorman—a wiry old bantam with flaring gray muttonchops—a meaningful nod. He did not have to explain why there were rough-looking men pounding up the stairs after them—the doorman just nodded back and posted himself at the threshold, thick arms crossed and bandy legs braced.

“You sure grandad can handle those bruisers?” Nussbaum cast a thumb over his shoulder as they walked through the marble foyer. “Maybe we hang around and make sure.”

“Old Sullivan’s more than a match for those bully pups.” Oesterlische swept the air dismissively. “He was with the 137th at Gettysburg.
Warlock
division. Claims he can turn a man inside-out by snapping his fingers and speaking a word entrusted to him by an old Yankee goomer-doctor.” Oesterlische lifted a conspiratorial eyebrow. “Also, he keeps a lead-shot sap in his back pocket.”

They reached the coat room. Oesterlische tucked his kid gloves neatly into his black bowler and handed it over, along with a camel-hair overcoat and ebony cane with a head of chased silver. Nussbaum had nothing to leave. His threadbare appearance caused the attendants in their gartered sleeves to very pointedly refrain from shaking their heads and clucking their tongues.

“Now, there’s a back door if you’re in a rush,” Oesterlische said. “Otherwise, why not tell me why you have a couple of Bowery b’hoys cracking their knuckles for a chance to rough you up? Over lunch, of course.”

Nussbaum licked his lips and nodded quick acceptance. The gleam in his eye indicated that a free lunch was nothing less than a gift of the fates. Oesterlische, too, thanked the fates that Nussbaum had stumbled upon the scene. For listening to Nussbaum describe what was sure to be a fascinating panoply of calamity, disorder, and dismay would keep Oesterlische from spending his whole lunch brooding over his own problems—most specifically, the Wildish Disaster.

It was pickled pig’s feet and chicken salad on the club menu that day—pretty uninspiring, so the young men called for a bucket of oysters and three shots of whiskey each. They lined the little glasses up in front of themselves, and stared at each other over them like a couple of pulp-novel gunslingers, eyes squinted steely-cold.

“To your health, old friend,” Nussbaum said, assuming an air of congenial menace.

“To yours, old pal,” Oesterlische countered, through gritted teeth.

They grimaced at each other a moment longer, hands hovering near to the shot glasses without touching. Then, by some silent accord, they exploded into action. They threw the liquor back shot by shot, slamming the glasses down as they emptied them.

Nussbaum slammed his last glass to the table a fraction of a second before Oesterlische did.

“Hah!” he crowed, jabbing a triumphant finger skyward. Then, wiping his mouth with his sleeve, Nussbaum reached into his coat and withdrew a long rolled piece of what looked to be thin leather. He swept the empty shot glasses to one side and smoothed out the scroll. It was vellum, brightly illuminated with delicate miniatures of gold-trimmed lovers in towers twined with red roses. It was covered with tightly cribbed writing and crusty brown splotches of what looked like old blood. In places it seemed to have been stabbed through with a broad, sharp knife.

“Was this what those brutes were after?” Oesterlische lowered his voice in respect for the marvelous document.

“Oh no, those were just a couple of fellows from down on Cherry Street that think I owe them some money,” Nussbaum snorted, apparently having already forgotten about them. “This . . .
this
is my golden fortune!”

Oesterlische regarded his friend with fond, whiskey-soft indulgence. This was Astor Nussbaum in a nutshell. Born on the wrong side of the Astor sheets (the largely unwelcome result of a bittersweet mésalliance between John Jacob Astor’s insane firstborn son and an overly sympathetic German housemaid named Grunde Nussbaum), making his way in the world should have been a simple matter of properly leveraging the Astor family’s well-known aversion to scandal. But no, Astor Nussbaum was always looking for his golden fortune in the unlikeliest of places—perpetual motion machines, hot-air balloon messenger services, or crusty old pieces of goatskin.

Oesterlische was about to ask how this particular crusty old piece of goatskin might be translated into a golden fortune, but at that moment the oysters arrived, a big silver bucket of plump briny Blue Points fresh from the cool waters off Staten Island. The waiter laid down blunt silver knives and a tray of lemon wedges. Nussbaum set to work, knifing a hapless bivalve with the expertise of a back-alley assassin, slurping the salty juice then gobbling the pearly flesh with gusto. Oesterlische did not reach for an oyster for fear of losing a finger.

Nussbaum did not speak again until, having pitched two dozen oysters down his throat, he released a satisfied belch redolent of the sea. He wiped his mouth once more, this time with the napkin, as if the shellfish had exercised a civilizing influence.

“It’s a magic scroll that can do amazing things,” he answered Oesterlische’s earlier, unspoken question as if the oysters had never interfered. “Teleportation, I think the warlocks call it.” Nussbaum leaned in close, his voice taking on a conspiratorial tone. “You want a demonstration?”

Nussbaum cast a swift glance from side to side. The club’s lunch room was largely deserted—most other young men, diligent types, had already betook themselves back to their offices. A superannuated attendant snoozed on a chair by the door.

Nussbaum took Oesterliche’s hand and laid it palm down on the scroll with his own hand over it. Then he whispered a word in Latin.

Vado.

There was a whoosh and a blinding, eye-watering flash. The whole world deformed, bent out of shape, and then suddenly they were sitting at their table—oyster bucket, empty whiskey glasses, and all—before a massive red-brick building with arched windows. Down a sloping hill, Oesterlische could make out the tall masts of ships at dock . . . he peered up, saw a gilded grasshopper weathervane . . .

“My God!” He sputtered. “Faneuil Hall! We’re . . . in Boston!”

Reverto
, Nussbaum said, as it was becoming apparent that two young men sitting at a white-linen-spread table in the middle of the sidewalk before Faneuil Hall were attracting the astonished comment of pedestrians.

And just like that, they were back within the Calacacara’s cozy, walnut-paneled walls. The snoozing attendant hadn’t even twitched an eyebrow.

“Amazing!” Oesterlische poured himself another whiskey with a shaking hand. “Incredible!”

“I’m going to deconstruct it, figure out how to make it work on a larger scale. Why would anyone ride on dirty old railroads if I could set up magic portals all over the world? Imagine it. Walk in one, end up wherever you want. I already have a name for them.
Nussbaum Doors
.”

Oesterlische nodded, though not at the name. No one in their right mind would walk through a Nussbaum Door. Now, an
Oesterlische
Door, on the other hand. . . . No, no. It would have to be something that fired the imagination, something with punch but that wouldn’t scare the women . . . “Fairy Door!” Ugh. “Merlin’s Archway?” Ridiculous. Oh well, he’d find some wideawake advertising copywriter to think something up . . .

“Well?” Nussbaum’s eyes were bright. “What do you think?”

Oesterlische wrinkled his nose, made a show of thinking. If he’d learned one thing in his life, it was never to reply to such a question in haste. He thought for a moment more, his mind encompassing many things —the threadbare figure of Nussbaum sitting before him, the Wildish Disaster, the unimaginable riches that could be theirs . . .
his
. He scratched his chin.

“I see problems,” he said gravely. “Mantic enterprises are tricky to start up. They’re often subject to strange and arcane regulations. You have to pay expensive experts to sit on your Board of Directors. You know warlocks, they don’t sell their services cheap. They’re like lawyers, but with fancier hats.”

Nussbaum’s face fell. Oesterlische stroked his chin.

“Does it only go to Boston?”

“It goes . . . various places,” Nussbaum said. “I’ll admit, I haven’t quite figured out how to control it yet. I can only read the Latin writing, you see. The rest is in some ancient gibberish.”

“I’ll bet everything you need to know is written in that ancient gibberish. If only you could
decipher
it!” Oesterlische paused, examined his nails, which were polished to a gleam. “Listen, I have a friend. He’s a Mantic Consultant. He’s a sharp fellow, I bet you he could . . .”

“A warlock?” Nussbaum squeaked and snatched the vellum protectively to his chest. “No, sir! I’m not showing this to a warlock. He’ll steal it!”

“If you want to use this scroll to make a big fortune, you’ll need a small fortune to start with. Money to get the business off the ground. Seed capital. Now, I can get seed capital for you . . .
if
you trust me.” Oesterlische spoke coolly, as if the very hint of distrust were a personal offense to him. It was a very practiced skill, and was how he was often able to get older men to invest much larger sums than their common sense might otherwise approve.

“I will arrange a meeting,” Oesterlische said, ignoring the fact that Nussbaum was pressing his lips together like a petulant baby. “But of course we’ll have to finalize
our
deal first. Secrecy must be upheld. Confidentiality, nondisclosure, all of that. You’ll want to be completely protected . . .”

“
Our
deal?” Nussbaum squeaked. “What do you mean,
our
deal?”

Oesterlische leaned forward. “Astor, you’re right. This
could
be bigger than the railroads. Which is precisely why going at it half cocked is so dangerous. What are you going to do when Jay Gould comes knocking at your door with a half-dozen of his Union Pacific boys, bloodthirsty and wielding knives gleaming in the moonlight?” Oesterlische leaned back. “Honestly, I’m having second thoughts about getting mixed up in it at all. We’ll probably both end up dead. Now, do you want me to help you, or not?”

Nussbaum silently contemplated the image of Jay Gould and his bloodthirsty railroad boys with the gleaming knives. Finally, he sighed and extended a hand across the table.

“I’ll draw up the paperwork this afternoon,” Oesterlische said, mentally earmarking fifty-one percent for his own share. “The warlock is named Elden Marinus. Meet me Thursday. Four o’clock. Central Park at 57th. I’ll take you around to see him.”